An understanding of Jung’s collective unconscious

     “A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal。 I call it the  personal unconscious。 But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn。 This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious。 I have chosen the term “collective”because this part of the unconscious is not inpidual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all inpiduals。 It is, in other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in everyone of us。”(Jung14) 

Jung believes that the contents of the collective unconscious are archetypes and Jung devotes the half of all his life to studying archetypes and writing books on archetypes。 He identifies a large number of archetypes, among which four major archetypes, the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, and the inpiduation, make extremely important influence on our personality and behaviors。 As the three core archetypes, the persona, the shadow and the inpiduation, they are explained in details in the following paragraphs。 

The persona

     The word “persona” derives from a Latin word that literally means “mask”。 It represents our public image。 So the persona is the mask you put on before you show yourself to the outside world。 The persona is the best image that a person presents to the public。 The purpose is to give people a good impression in order to obtain recognition of the community。 The persona ensures that we can live with people in harmony, even those we do not like。 It can realize their personal aims, and achieve their personal success。来,自,优.尔:论;文*网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-

     Persona can be both beneficial and harmful。 If a person is too keen on, or wallow in his own role, if he just agrees on their own role, other aspects of personality will be excluded。 If dominated by the personality of the mask, he will gradually alienated with their nature, and live in a state of tension。 A person’s ego is identified with the persona。 This situation is called “inflation”。 On the one hand, the person will be arrogant due to the success of the role which he acts as。 On the other hand, those persons with the excessive inflation of the persona themselves are victims of the inflation of the persona。 They may feel alienated from the group, and thus experience a sense of loneliness and separation。 However, whether the persona is good or bad, its existence is a fact of human life and inevitably demands for performance。